


A Life Left Behind.

by words_b4_prose



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 12:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/words_b4_prose/pseuds/words_b4_prose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gendry leaves Westeros to Braavos, forming a life away from the memories of hurt and death. He never expected to see Arya there, doing the exact same thing. A slight AU but told in the land of Braavos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Life Left Behind.

**Author's Note:**

> A long one shot that came to mind after reading ADWD. What happened to Gendrya and what would happen if he ran into Arya in a land away from destruction? Hope you enjoy. I loved writing it.

Gendry looked up at the great Titan of the Free Cities and felt ultimately relief that his former life was behind him. Going to Braavos was the only option left for the knight from the Brotherhood without Banners to refrain from killing himself. The children he fostered left a hole of emptiness inside of him, gradually expanding with each hole he dug to bury their tiny little bodies after the fight broke out with the Maiden Brienne of Tarth and the impostor that posed as the Hound. Gendry never felt such a strong hatred as he tried swinging the blade towards the Hound's helm, but Brienne pushed him back into the smithy and told him to run. 

He didn't listen, rushing towards them, his newly forged sword in his hand. He was disarmed within seconds, falling against the impact of a war hammer that struck him square in the chest. The last thing he remembered was a bright light and the notion that he could have fought better with a war hammer. 

He awoke to see a burned down tavern and smelling burnt flesh, while screams echoed throughout. He hoped many of them would survive but he was no maester, he didn't know how to stop the hurt and pain that radiated from the burns. Instead, he failed, watching each child with whimpers on their lips for a relief. After he buried each one, he found a few gold and silver stags left from what he assumed to be Lady Brienne, her armor scorched as black as the tavern.

With what happened at the tavern, and what he heard happened at the Red Wedding, Gendry could only feel disgust with Westeros, and vowed to hell with the Seven Kingdoms and to hell with the war, he wanted no part of it, and boarded the first boat that would offer him passage to the free cities for a few silver stags. 

As he saw the Titan, his diminished soul seemed uplifted, even if it was just a tiny glimmer of it. Here he would not be recognized as Gendry Waters, a bastard born in King's Landing. He would not have to worry about Lords and Ladies, who was king, who was not, who died or who was killed. And that was the biggest relief of them all.

As the boat reached the docks, Gendry scanned the port, watching people with dark skin from overwork in the sun roping in freshly caught fish and other secrets from the sea.

"What's this place called?" he asked.

"Ragman's Harbor," a fellow said. He heard the haggling of people, and instantly caught a strong smell of fish. But it wasn't unpleasant, Gendry realized, just unexpected. 

He saw a young girl wheeling a barrow full of something he could not make out, cats trailing after her, keeping their distance. He saw as she chucked one something carelessly over he shoulder as the Cats ravaged each other before a big Tabby orange one was the victor, running away with it's prize.

When the ship landed, Gendry wandered around the harbor, and began walking up the steps into the city. People were moving left and right, all different and all very much the same. Men with colorful hats, rich robes, and sailors smocks. Everyone was making a living here on their own and he couldn't wait to follow suit. 

He brought with him the small purse that he took from Brienne of Tarth's body, to find lodging, and his best sword that he ever smithed to show that he was a good welder. He followed the men he traveled with to a place called the Happy Port, hoping it was an inn. He had no bed but the docks on the ship and he wouldn't mind spending a few extra coins for a blanket and a bed of straw. He knew his back would be grateful.

He wasn't surprised to find out that the Happy Port was actually a brothel, woman looking and stroking him in all the inappropriate places. It was worth noting that the women were beautiful, possibly more so than the ones in Westeros, each with different hair, eyes and even skin color. There was a whore with one eye, and Gendry even felt the attraction for her. They too glared at him with desire and lust all at once. He was certain any of these women would want to share his bed, but he was never the type to peruse after a woman's skirts or tumble into bed and steal passionate moments in the night. He was too busy struggling to survive. 

"I am looking for a room," he said. A girl named Merry, with an enormous bust line greeted Gendry with a smile.

"We have room for you lad, but I don't think you will enjoy the comfort of an empty bed. I'm sure you would enjoy the company of Bethany or the Sailor's Wife," she offered.

"No, I just need a place to sleep that isn't made of stone," he said. Merry showed him to his room, after Gendry gave her the rates for his room unaccompanied, and as she shut the door he heard her tell the girls who were waiting outside to step in that he was a eunuch. 

He stayed at the Happy Port for two days, eventually going out to explore more after he had a decent night's rest, and a hot meal. He went to as many smithies as he could find, showing them his work, and was finding it difficult to find a place he truly enjoyed, or that would pay him well. Many of the smithies had children of their own that they were apprenticing, and each one gave him a hard look, mostly envious of his skills as they stared at his sword. The fact that he did not know Bravosi was also a contributing factor, but he caught on quick, learning a little at a time, the first being counting the prices he was offering as he found a smithy with a humble old man who had a strong pain in his arm. Gendry assumed it was the frozen sickness, pain radiating up and down, making it difficult to hold onto anything. 

The old man did not know a word of the Common Tongue, and didn't offer trying to learn as he shared his home and food with Gendry, nor did he care, as long as he would continue getting a stable living with Gendry's work. Often, the men he was molding armor for would find some complaint to haggle down the prices, but Yorlan, the old man was called, was just as stubborn to keep the prices as they were, and Gendry would hear him yelling, his frozen arm raising as his voice did.

He often would take his lead feet to the Happy Port, feeling as though that was the only place that spoke the Common Tongue, due to it being so close to Ragman's Harbor, where men from every land outside of the free cities stationed their ship.

"Gendry," Shy Ylara came up pushing her hands against his chest, making him ease them down to her sides. He caught her blushing as she rose her chest due to the sharp intake of breath, her breasts pushing into his chest instead, hoping that would get Gendry more attracted towards her. He walked over to Merry and asked for a cup of strong ale in his most perfected Bravosi that he practiced for three days straight. She laughed at his attempt but brought him his ale.

"Is Cat coming tonight? I have a strange craving for clams," he heard one of the men say as his hand slid in-between Beth's legs. She laughed as her mouth crashed against his, both drunk on wine.

"Who is Cat?" Gendry once asked.

"The little she-wolf in cat's clothing, and from what many hear a servant of the Many Faced God," a man said to him as he swallowed his ale, "I've often been coming just to see her, I've offered my coins to Merry just to taste her tiny cunt-"

"Cat is no whore, as I have told you many times," Merry said "She just sells the clams and cockles. So keep your cock in it's breeches, if you know what is good. Or better yet, in one that actually is a whore," she smiled. Gendry was curious to see this she-wolf, vaguely remembering another from his life across the sea. A lady that was named Arya Stark from Winterfell in the North.

Nobody found her after the Red Wedding, and he and his brotherhood had less luck before that when she was scooped up by the Hound right from under them. As he and his brothers traveled they heard stories. Some said she was there the night of the Red Wedding and went mad as she saw the Starks killed before her eyes, trying to kill Walder Frey with her tiny fists. There were other rumors escalating that she was found, and was arranged to marry Lord Bolton. Neither rumor brought Gendry any comfort. He liked to believe that she was lost forever with the dire wolf she told him once about called Nymeria. It was the only comfort he would allow himself to feel. But in truth, it was not long before he started forgetting about her, much like he chose to forget about his life before coming to Braavos. A bastard should not concern himself with what becomes of forgotten ladies.

Still, this Cat sounded like an interesting interaction, so Gendry often visited the Happy House, mostly for the ale, but also to see who this Cat was and catch a glimpse of her.

She didn't come the first few weeks that Gendry visited the Happy Port after settling with Yorlan and his forge. He had been living in Braavos for at least 2 moons when he finally heard Merry say her name.

"Cat!" Merry chimed, saying something to her in a thick Bravosi accent, to which Cat responded back in choppy Bravosi. The inn keeper laughed out loud at her response. 

"I got cockles and clams and a few prawns left," the girl named Cat said in the Common Tongue, perfectly pronounced, Gendry noticed. She must not be from Braavos then, he pondered.

The men and whores crowded around her before he could see her face. The only thing he saw was the long messy hair chopped down to her shoulders, dirty breeches, and a salty but fishy smell, like the one that came from the port. As he stood up he could see bangs framed around her forehead and a side profile as she turned left and right to sell to each buyer. He noticed her face was long, her nose a little sharp, and her cheekbones a bit high. But there was no denying that she wasn't a pretty face. But something about her eyes whispered a defensive stance, Gendry could feel it if no one else could. He tapped her shoulder as everyone retreated and extended a bravosi coin towards her. He was incredibly taller, she only reaching his chest, but she turned around and saw the coin before seeing his bright blue eyes. Her grey eyes looked up at him in a snarling low growl. 

It had been two years since Gendry looked at Arya Stark of Winterfell, and yet it seemed like it was just a few moons ago before she disappeared, kidnapped by the Hound. He stood perplexed and dazed, disbelief in his eyes, but hers did not betray anything. She took his coin without looking at his blue eyes again, handing him cockles and continuing to sell to the others until her barrow was empty.

"M'lady," he said cautiously, wondering if he would attract the wolf out of her to prove this was Arya and not a makeshift face that resembled her.

That did not attract anything, other than her saying her goodbyes as she wheeled the barrow out of the brothel. But Gendry soon followed after her, the cold bringing a shiver down his spine, at least he assumed it was the wind and not because of Arya's ghost that he was chasing. He looked out and saw a forgotten barrow as a shadow escalated on the roofs of the houses. She was fast. 

His instinct chased after her, but there was no way he was going to catch her.

"Arya!" he yelled.

She stopped in her tracks and quickly looked back, seeing him with her grey eyes before disappearing behind the houses.  
________________________________________________________________________

Gendry had to work at the old man's forge from the dawn until nightfall. But he realized his work was getting sloppy as he kept forgetting his tempo and rhythm to beat down against the steel. But the thought of Arya here in Braavos was all he could think about after he saw her and called her name. She was alive, he kept saying to himself as he pounded against the breastplate, flattening it, instead of giving it the curvature as the old man attempted to convey to him. 

He realized she was not going to come search for him, so instead, he searched for her. He asked Merry to tell him everything, where she was staying, what she was doing, who she was with. Merry did not know as much as he would have liked, but she was helpful in telling him where she would be the night of the new moon. 

"She goes to the House of Many Faces once a new moon to work as a servant there. But that's all I know Gendry," she said. "Do you know her?"

"Yes," he said.

"Who is she?" Merry said, "I just thought she would be some orphan that sailed from Westeros, poor thing."

Gendry was not sure how much he could trust a brothel owner, "She's an old friend," he said. Merry did not need to know more.

The House of Many Faces was also commonly known as the House of Black and White, resting on a rocky knoll, it's grey stone unwelcoming. Two huge doors stood at the middle of the grey stone, one as black as night and the other a polished white. Gendry pushed the white one aside, looking into the temple and noticing a giant pool in the center of the main room. Various statues were scattered around the room, possibly gods, Gendry thought. He didn't bother counting them, they were not his gods, why should he care?

There were people by the water, drinking or laying down, others praying in a corner or out in the open. It was dark, but Gendry would wait if it meant crossing paths with her again.

No priest came to him to ask what his business was here, and for that he was glad. He didn't know how to explain that he just wanted to talk to one that worked here. He noticed that some of the people close to the pool were either sleeping or dead. He thought this was a place where people pray some final prayer and die quietly. If only the orphans back in Westeros could have had that pleasure.

The door opened and a small figure appeared at the door and Gendry knew it was her. Her small frame and shoulder length brown hair noticeable even in the dark night to ignore. He noticed she was not walking towards the pool where he was standing, instead she walked over to a small corner, an old man waving her forward. He inched close enough to hear their exchange of voices in the dark.

"What do you know that you did not know when you left us?" he asked her.

"I know Bessie Blount has discovered a new herb that she intends to use on her husband to kill him," she said, "I know the ship Harlayne's Breath smuggled slaves from Qarth to sell in Pentos illegally, I know the new smithy Yorlan took in is a man from Westeros."

"It is good to know these things. And who are you?" he asked her.

"No one," she answered dutifully, and Gendry realized it was as though she believed it.

"You lie," the old man said, "You are Cat of the Canals, I know you well. Go and sleep, child. On the morrow you must serve."

"All men must serve," she said. She turned to walk away, but Gendry watched her direction attracted towards him. She was staring him down, instead of scurrying off like she did back at the brothel. The old man was lost in the shadows as Gendry walked up to her, careful not to spook her.

"Arya?" he said.

She didn't acknowledge him, nor spoke his name, though he wished she would. Her eyes were still staring at him as he inched closer and closer, ignoring the fact that she reeked of fish.

"You shouldn't be here."

"Arya-"

"You shouldn't be here," she said again, this time ready to run. He remembered the way her body tensed when she was going to sprint, but his hand was too quick for her much like so long ago when they wrestled at the forge in a forgotten inn. She punched him as she wrestled free but Gendry would not let her go. If he did, he would never know when he would be able to see her again.

The struggle she put up was fierce, and Gendry knew he awoke the beast within her, earning scratches all over his arms, but Arya never yelled for help as he brought her outside of the temple, and no guards raised up to stop them, he was glad for that.

"Stop!" she said, still clawing at him for her escape. He realized she was fighting harder as he pulled her outside the temple, kneeing him as she tried to aim for his sensitive area. 

"Seven Hells Arya, you are more like a cat than a wolf, I care to admit," Gendry said. But he still held her as she stopped her struggling.

"Let me go," she said.

"Only if you ask nicely."

"I will stab you if you don't," she threatened.

"Only if you don't run," he stated, "Or I will pin you down in front of these marble doors."

He slowly released the pressure from her wrists, and Arya slapped his hand away as she grabbed them, her defense still strong in her eyes.

"It's really you Arya," he breathed. He still couldn't believe it. "What in seven hells are you doing here in Braavos?"

"I should ask you the same," she said, her look still cold and tactful, "Come to bring me back to Westeros? I won't go without a fight," she said.

"It was not my intention to take you to Westeros, I didn't even know you were hiding out in Braavos!” he said.

"What do you want then?" She asked. 

"Nothing," he said, "I am not returning to Westeros, I decided. I found an old man that took me up as his smith, I've been working there for two moons and still can't speak perfect Bravosi but it's a start." 

"Then why did you come here?" she asked.

"Because I needed to get away from it all," he began.

"No I mean what are you doing at the House of Many Faces?"

"To see you," he said. Her eyes didn't soften at the remark, nor did they remain bitter. There was an emotion Gendry couldn't quite figure out as he stared at her. "I heard about a she-wolf from the Happy Port, and I was curious, but I never thought it was you. I thought you died at the Red Wedding with your mother and brother, or worse, that you were found and married to that Bolton Lord."

"Neither of those things, as you can see," she said, her arms extended. "I have been living here, and serving the House of Many Faced Gods."

"Why?"

"I have a list, I intend on finishing it," she said. Gendry remembered the lullaby she would say to herself to fall asleep. He didn't remember the names, but she prayed it long and hard into the night to embed it into her thoughts, into her very soul he thought. She began her walk back into the temple and Gendry did not stop her, he was gratified at the time she gave him, but he realized she was not the girl that she was back in Westeros. Braavos made her hard as the Titan that guarded it, no pity in her soul for anyone or anything.

"You know where I am," Gendry said as she passed through the door. She did not look back at him as she closed the white door, a loud slam echoing amongst the knoll.

_________________________________________________________________

Gendry stopped obsessing over Arya quickly, once he found her and found out she was alive and in Braavos, there was not much hunting to be done. She was safe, in a way, and that's what he hoped for her. He spent his days working in the forge, trying to fix the armored breastplates he muddled up in the first place. His tandem pounding kept a still pace as the iron sang to him, melting beneath his skills. In the hot sun he stayed shirtless, sweat glistening off his entire body as the fire roared and the plate hissed in the steam from the water.

"That breastplate you had hanging on the wall for over a fortnight. Why are you working on it again?"

Arya was quiet as a shadow as she appeared in the doorway to the smithy. But to his surprise, she did not shock him as she stood there in her overwrought breeches, the smell of the sea very staunch and filling in the forge. He had the feeling that her eyes were watching him as he pounded the steel only moments ago, not bothering to interrupt a smith at work. 

"I have to fix it because the curve of torso is wrong," he said, putting it aside to look at Arya. He had no doubt that she was still selling the shellfish by the Harbor and to Merry's whores in the Happy Port. It had been days since he went and had some of her ale, perhaps he would go tonight after he was done with the breastplate. He noticed Arya stared back at him, suspicion ever present in her grey eyes. She didn't want to believe that Gendry was here of his own free will he realized. He knew she still thought that he was planning on bringing her back. 

As she stared he noticed how much her figure as well as her face changed. She grew into the woman she was becoming, no firm hips, but definitely not lacking in curves or breasts. Her long face seemed agitated but still pretty, and her child face was replaced with a much more refined one. Gendry sometimes felt the eyes of the old hand of the king instead of Arya’s was staring at him. She looked very much like her father with that sharp nose and those dark cloudy eyes. 

"Why do they call you Cat?" he asked her as she walked into the forge, touching things here and there.

"I needed a different name from the one I had," she picked up his hammer and set it down right as he left it, "I cannot be Arya Stark of Winterfell here. Too many men ride to Westeros. So sometimes I am Cat, other times I am no one." She didn't look at him as she examined the breastplate. "How is Yorlan?"

"Fighting and hacking like I assume all old men do," Gendry said, looking over his shoulder. Yorlan never bothered to open his door unless he heard a customer speaking Bravosi to Gendry.

"He won't last long," she said. "I have seen him visit the House of Many Faces, I believe he is asking for the gift."

"I don't have much Bravosi in me to continue working. I just forge the steel, but he barters the prices."

"…Mayhaps I can help you," she said, "I can teach you Bravosi, enough to help you understand numbers and figures and what you want and need to say."

"I want to say 'I'm not going to go any lower you fat fuck.'" he said. Arya smiled, the first he ever saw, before it quickly dissipated, almost as if she was instructing her face to not show emotion.

"I can teach you that," she said.  
_______________________________________________________________

Arya was right about Yorlan. He died at the House of Many Faces within a moon's time. Although Gendry had no relationship with the old man other than being his worker and he his employer, he still felt a little saddened that the old man was gone. He saw Arya more often after that, almost as soon as she sold her shellfish and waiting on his cot as he hammered the plates and swords to how he envisioned them. Sometimes, he often found her asleep, and he pulled a sheet over her when it was cold, and left her as she was, her hands up protecting her face, her legs curled up underneath her. Often times, he saw her sleep for minutes before realizing she could wake any second and possibly clout him for just standing there like an idiot. 

She was different from the Arya in Westeros, and yet still exactly as he remembered her. She was a woman grown, at ten and six whereas he was six years older than her. Her hair was still unkempt, almost as much as his own black hair. Possibly that was why she was keeping it short. Her body was still lean, but filled out to fit her frame. She told him that she held a small knife in her shirt when he said he worried about her as she would barter out in Ragman's Harbor. She didn't smile, not as often as he remembered she would back in Westeros, but he realized there was not much to laugh at these days, especially for her. She was an orphan now, no father or mother, and her siblings scattered all over Westeros, dead probably. She didn't know what happened to her younger brother's after Theon Greyjoy took Winterfell and burned it to the ground. He had no news of her sister Sansa to give her comfort. He just knew Westeros was no longer a home she would return to anytime soon, if at all.

"How did you get to Braavos without coin?" he asked as they dined on prawns and clams.

She told him about what happened after the Hound took her to the Twins, and how she left him to die instead of granting him the instant relief of death. 

"Jaqen Ha'gar gave me this coin, told me to find any Braavosi and say Valar Morghulis to them," she said. She took out the coin and showed it to him, before snatching it back and putting it back inside her shirt.

"What does that mean?" he asked her.

"All men must die," she said matter of factly. 

Most of the time she came to visit him, she inquired as he told her about the Brotherhood and he told her why he left and what happened at the orphanage he found and raised the children. She demanded the name of the man that killed and burned those children to add him to her death list. 

"You don't need to add any more people, you know," he said one night.

"What do you mean?" she said, taking a bite out of the stale bread she bought with her.

"You don't need to keep saying the list," he said, "Just start forgetting about it. You're not in Westeros anymore, why bother with it? It's not like Queen Cersei is going to grab a ship and come to Braavos." Arya didn't say anything, just kept nibbling at her bread before he took it from under her and bit it hard. It was strange, she would recite it like a prayer in the beginning when she would sleep in the forge, but he noticed time and time again, she was not reciting it as often as she did when she was in Westeros. Her life was different now, he knew. She didn't want to return to that life in the seven kingdoms, and he didn't want to go back to the places that brought him nothing but war and starvation. He enjoyed Braavos as each day passed with Arya by his side. She taught him more and more Bravosi, and he soon learned to haggle his own prices without her assistance. 

She still worked at the House of Many Faces, and when she would be gone during that time, he found himself too occupied to be in the forge without her there. So he went over to the Happy Port with Merry and the other girls company as he drank his ale until three days passed and Arya was back to being Cat of the Canals instead of being No one. 

Gendry made it a habit of calling her M'lady or Arya, or sometimes even Cat, even though he didn't think it suited her. She was agile like a cat but her eyes festered with Wolf's blood. 

"I'm going to shove Needle through your stomach if you keep calling me M'lady," she threatened.

As moons passed, Arya stopped visiting the House of Many Faces, she stopped whispering her prayer in the dark, only selling the shellfish as soon as she could and returning back to the forge, talking to Gendry as he fitted the men into their armor. He wondered why she stopped, and why she was visiting him more often.

"I don't know three things I did not know before I went to the house," she said, "The old man won't let me serve unless I know three things I didn't know before."

He had the feeling it was his fault she was failing at retrieving new information. She started spending more and more time with him, instead of listening to the men at the harbor she would listen to him and she would tell him her stories oftentimes as well, just so he would stop talking. Before, she would have shown her dislike towards this, but she was acting every bit of a woman that she was: taking the good with the bad. And that made Gendry admire her much more. He realized as soon as he could that he did not love her like a sister, nor did she love him like a brother, the way she would look at him said otherwise, which made him uncomfortable, but at the same time, eager. Not that he would act on his impulse. Even though she was known as Cat of the Canals here, to him she was still Arya Stark, the princess of Winterfell, and a lady should not lay with a bastard. 

"Are you going to the Happy Port?" She asked. 

"Possibly to drink some ale," he said, "After this helm has been fixed." 

"Is that all you do there? You never lay with the women there?"

"What's it your concern M'lady?"

"It's not my concern, I am just curious," she said. Gendry watched as her face started shifting uncontrollably, and he noticed she was worried and irritated. All that practice of learning how to control her face was slowly coming out of practice. He started reading her emotions more clear, and he looked at her quietly, trying to investigate the true emotion she held. 

"I don't lay with anyone there," he said. 

"But you still laid with other women? Like the one at the peach?"

"A girl at the peach?"

"That one time you got angry at me for some reason. Because I said you weren't my brother?"

Gendry had a small recollection of them being at the inn, vaguely remembering a lock of black hair that trailed all the way down to her back. But he had no recollection of her face, or her being.

"And if I did?" he teased. Arya made a face again that showed displeasure again as he laughed carelessly, throwing his head back. "Is this jealousy M'lady?" he asked.

"No!" she said, and disappeared.

Gendry often listened as Arya would stumble in and out as she pleased, like a sullen but musing cat. She soon began asking about Westeros and the state he left it in. Gendry told her about King Joffrey dying at the hands of his uncle the Imp and how the queen regent was demanding his head. She told him the word that that Imp killed his father as well and that's why he left Westeros. 

"Kinslaying and kingslaying, I don't know which is worse."

"They are all worse," she said.

After a while, when Gendry's tales were repetitive, Arya began talking again about the North and Winterfell as she remembered it before she left to King's Landing with her father. She spoke of Bran and her younger brother as if they were still alive somewhere, and spoke highly of her bastard brother at the Wall, Jon Snow. In the beginning, Gendry remembered how distant she was from all of those memories, almost as if she was choosing to forget everything about Arya Stark. And now, she wouldn't shut up about her previous life.

She liked telling him about the forge in Winterfell, which Gendry most liked to hear. But in truth he enjoyed listening to her speak about the godswood where her father used to pray. Compared to all the chaos that arose in the seven kingdoms, he never heard of a place more at peace.

"I didn't want to forget who any of them were," she told him, "But I had to, to work for the God of Many Faces. No one has family, possessions, or even a name. No one has time for friends or lovers…" she trailed off, looking at Gendry's direction. He moved a bit away, uncomfortable that he was sitting on a straw bed with a highborn, even though they always ended up sitting alone together as the embers died down.

She would ask about his mother and father, trying to help him remember who he was, a life before working at a smithy, but Gendry didn't really care. He was fine with was being No one. Being a No one was all he knew. But he found himself trying for her, only failing to recognize a woman with golden curls or brunette singing lullabies, and a man with a great big black beard and shining blue eyes that matched his when he would look at the looking glass. Instead, Gendry told her about Flea Bottom, and how he lived before becoming an apprentice to the smithy in King's Landing. She shared her own stories as she lived down there after her father had fallen as the Hand. She went too far into her memories that she told him the day she saw King Joffrey demand the head of her father and Ser Ilyn Payne fulfilling that wish with a swing of the sword.

"Yoren grabbed me to cover my eyes from it, but I already knew and it was too late for my father," she said. He noticed she was trying hard not to let the tears sway her, but soon enough she could not contain them as she laid her head on his lap, crying softly to herself. 

Nothing prepared him for her recollection of the Red Wedding. He assumed she only heard what happened, but never reached the actual place of her family's murder. "I was there," she began, Gendry never breaking the contact she had with his eyes. "I was brought by the Hound, but escaped soon after when I knew that my mother was inside the Twin's hall, celebrating my uncle's wedding.

"I saw the North men speared and swords plunged into their hearts and stomachs, and that's when I knew my brother had to have been dead. I just never imagined my mother was dead as well." Her arms started shaking, as if a tremor would consume her, but she went on, "And the Hound found me and tried knocking me unconscious, but I saw. I saw what they did to my brother and to Grey Wind. I-I saw the Wolf's head on my b-brother's body, and heard their taunts 'a-all hail the king of the north,' parading him up and down the fucking burning camp."

She began to cry harder and deeper than Gendry ever saw, and she crashed her slim frame into his as she soaked his linen shirt. His instinct to give her comfort came as innocent as a kiss on her forehead, which stopped her cries, only for a second, as she looked up in disbelief. She looked up at him and Gendry cursed at himself for laying his lips on any part of a lady. He had no right; he was a bastard.

But Arya soon brought her lips against his, as her salty tears cascaded all over again.  
______________________________________________________________________________

The months that followed the kiss left Gendry as confused as her impulse to match his own. Arya came as soon as she could, a smile often on her lips and Gendry replicating it. She would often reach in for a hug, but Gendry would often tie her hands back to their sides with a small tap. Then suddenly she was no longer smiling, or appearing at his forge as much as she used to.

He would often walk around to see if he would see her, wondering if the kiss from so many moons ago was the reason that she was avoiding him. But she kissed him back, and it was he that pulled away in disbelief. 

"I am sorry m'lady," he told her, and left her in the forge as he went into bed.

He didn't know why he couldn't kiss her, possibly because he still felt in his bones that he was a bastard, and bastards don't kiss highborns. 

But Arya was different from other highborn ladies, and he knew that. But the prospect of harm coming towards him because he simply knew Arya that personally was always in the back of his mind. Was it worth the risk?

Arya was often coming and felt a little reproachful, minding her distance because Gendry was imposing the barriers. He would no longer sit close to her, instead he would sit across from her. If she wanted to rest her head on his shoulder, he softly pushed her against the wall, and begin his hammering to take his mind off her. He would often work during the night time, and stay indoors all day even when he knew Arya was waiting for him in the forge.

"Why are you acting weird?" 

"I'm not," he said.

"You are avoiding me," she said, getting closer, making him shift and walk across to the other side of the forge. "See?"

"I have no idea-"

"Is it because I kissed you?"

"I knew that I shouldn't have done that," he began.

"Gendry-"

"M'lady."

"Stop calling me that," she said with a serious tone in her voice.

"But you are a lady," he said, a little more harsher than he intended. "And I'm just a bloody bastard, I have no right kissing you."

"You have no right to tell me what to do, you are not my brother. If I want to kiss you, I can," she said defensively.

"Then what if I don't want to kiss you?" he said, hoping she wouldn't believe that.

She got up from the bed frame he had in the forge and walked out, slamming the door behind her. She didn't come the first night after he said that lie, and Gendry didn't blame her. He stayed up most nights to see if she would walk in during moonlight, but she didn't. In the end, he knew that he had to find her and ask for forgiveness. 

He had looked everywhere she took him to, the harbor, the rookery, the drapery, the courtyard with Tyroshi men boasting. But she did not appear anywhere there. So he looked where he knew; other smithies, the Happy Port with the whores looking excited to see him, and finally, the House of Many Faces.

He walked up inside and waited by the pool, neither drinking nor seeing, just waiting.

"What is your business here?" A voice called from behind him. Gendry turned around to stare at the old man that Arya talked to some time ago.

"I am looking for Ary- Cat," he said, forgetting she was not known as Arya here.

"There is no Cat here. Only No one."

"Then that's who I am looking for," he said.

"No one is here," the old man said a smile of cunning appearing on his kind face. Gendry scrunched his face in annoyance. This man knew where she was, and wasn't going to tell him.

"I just need to talk to her," he said, "To tell her about the-"

"No one you know," the old man said, "No one belongs to the Many Faced God. No one has no time for bastard smiths. No one knows this."

He was pushed out by an invisible hand, the door closed behind him.

The days passed as he hammered down iron, but no news came to his forge. He felt as though Arya disappeared all over again.  
He continued coming to the House, hoping if he waited outside he would run into her, but mostly people entered and did not return outside. A place where people die was a place that always smelled of death, and Gendry wondered if Arya was alive or letting death consume her. But he knew she was stronger than that. 

The only times the doors opened was when people entered and when a little blind mousey girl with a blind fold appeared, a walking stick guiding her through the darkness. She bumped into Gendry the first time that he saw her go outside, a basket in her hand. 

“My apologies,” he said, holding onto her. The girl lifted her head to the sound of his voice but said nothing. He felt her hands squeeze his arm softly, then walked down going towards the harbor. She had the same build as Arya, but her muted eyes didn't reveal anything that Gendry would even begin to suspect that it was her.

He soon found out the blind girl was named Beth, and she was working for the Many Faced God, even though she lacked the vision. She was very clumsy, often bumping into people and Gendry often wondered if she did this purposely or by accident. She only spoke Bravosi, and walked towards the Harbor every night, coming back with a pocket full of foreign coins from all the nine lands of the world they inhabited. He didn't hear anything from Arya for almost a year, and it didn't seem to matter anymore. She was lost again, and there was nothing to do about it. He tried to find her, but with little luck, until he decided to just give up like all previous attempts when he was with the Brotherhood. His only hope was that she was safe.

__________________________________________________________________

"Hello," a voice called in his forge one day, breaking his concentration with the sword he was making. For a brief second he felt it was Arya, coming to annoy him, or speak to him, or anything. After a year, he was growing desperate for Arya to appear again before him, still the same hard look, and those lips that he kissed only once. But when he turned he saw a woman with long black hair, thick and course and overflowing, green piercing eyes, emeralds. Her mouth was cuter than a cupids bow, lightly shaded and her nose was mousey. Her clothes were tinted in twenty shades of purple, clashing with her ghost pale skin, but accentuating every inch of her body, long and lean.

"How can I help you madam?" He said in his best Bravosi, which was rewarded with a smile. She surely must have been high born. Her steps were silent as she walked into the forge.

"I need a sword," she said, in the common tongue, eyeing the iron he had waiting in a corner. "The sword I have is not strong enough for my tasks."

"And what is that madam?" he said.

"A few people must die, I have a list to complete." She looked at him intently, unfaltering in her gaze that screamed a thousand secrets and no truths.

"Arya?" he asked.

"No," the woman said. "I have become No one."

Gendry looked at her, deep and hard, trying to find anything that was Arya, but nothing looked at him that said she was the young wolf princess of Winterfell. The only thing that told him this was her was her careless way she was boasting she was No One. 

"No, you are Arya."

"Do I look like a girl from Winterfell? Arya has green eyes like mine? Or long hair?" The impostor was asking. 

"I know Arya," he said. "She is the daughter of Eddard and Catelyn Stark, born in Winterfell. She had three brothers and a natural brother named Jon Snow, whom she loved more but never wanted to admit it. A sister that was named Sansa Stark. Her brother Robb Stark was the King of the North, until the Freys betrayed him,"

"Stop Gendry, I am no one. I am no longer Arya Stark of Winterfell."

"You are still Arya, stop lying to yourself. Stop giving this facelessness the eager satisfaction of another lost person."

"I have always been lost Gendry." she said. "I was never a lady, I couldn't be a wolf, so I became what I always was, a No one."

"And you're proud of this accomplishment? Being a No one?"

"It’s what I need to face what I need to do."

"You're going back to Westeros," he said. 

"I have to go back Gendry," she said, looking at him with those green eyes. They were no longer hypnotizing.

"There's nothing there for you Arya, don't go, you'll only get killed."

"What does a bastard care what happens to me? You don't care about me, you only care about your forge and being a smith. You don't know what I've been thorough, what I have seen, what I've done."

"I know everything about Arya Stark because she told me everything about her, her family,her home, or have you forgotten that?"

"I remember kissing you and you saying that you never wanted to kiss me in the first place, so why should I care for a stupid bull headed man?"

"I have no right, I am a bastard, not a highborn, I've told you this," he started to get irritated.

"And once I finish my list I will be just that, a bloody highborn, as you constantly mention to me, so I have to go back to retake Winterfell and be a stupid high born, so that you can say you can't kiss a highborn, seeing as that's what you want."

"I want you Arya, not Cat or No one, Arya of Winterfell, whom I will protect."

"I don't need protection, especially not from a bastard smith," her look was hard, the green tint escaping her eyes, to show an underlying grey hue.

"It doesn't matter how you look, underneath you will always be Arya. Don't forget that," he said. Arya's appearance shifted before him. The green behind her eyes almost all gone, her hair didn't look black, but stringy and brown, and her nose sharp. She was losing the face she had put on. 

"I don't want to be anyone Gendry, I want to be No one, like you." She said quietly. Her head reached down towards the floor as she crumpled her hands into it, her shoulders moving up and down as Gendry walked over to her and pulled her close. She gripped his body hard, pressing against his chest as the sobs escaped her frame. 

He didn't let go of her even as they went to sleep. 

The next morning he noticed Arya was gone. Her clothes, swaddled in a corner was the only proof that she was there. He went out to the morning air, hearing the people start waking up to begin the day. 

He caught sent of the sea and rushed over to see if he would catch the ship that would send Arya back to Winterfell. Instead, there she was, on the docks with her short hair waving as rapid as the waves. She was looking out to sea, watching the boat that would have taken her back to being Arya Stark, princess of Winterfell. He sat down beside her. She was in his breeches, a thin sword on her hip he has seen before, but couldn't remember the name. 

"I knew a girl, that looked like me. Her name was Arya Stark. She had a mother named Catelyn, a father that was the Hand of the King. Three brothers named Robb, Bran and Rickon. A bastard brother named Jon Snow. An annoying sister named Sansa," she smiled, "a direwolf named Nymeria." She pulled out the thin blade, letting it gleam against the sun and the waters, "Her brother Jon gave her this sword needle, telling her the first rule of sword play is to stick them with the pointy end." She hesitated, but let the sword fall into the water. "She was a good girl, but she died the day her father did, the day her mother and brother did."

"Then, who are you? If you aren't Arya Stark, princess of Winterfell?"

"I am Arya Snow, a bastard of the north," she said. He brought her close and pressed his lips against her forehead as she wrapped her arms around his frame.


End file.
